Did These Four Crypto Traders Manipulate PAAL AI?

ZachXBT, a blockchain investigator, has provided evidence alleging the involvement of four prominent online traders in a pump-and-dump scheme with the Ethereum token PAAL AI.

“All in all we could potentially have reach up to 2.67m organic followers,” a leaked message from the accused trader’s telegram group read.

On September 11, ZachXBT asserted in a series of posts on X (formerly Twitter) that TraderNJ, PetaByte, XO, and Trader SZ were allegedly involved in a pump-and-dump scheme, aiming to profit at the expense of their followers.

ZachXBT posted a diagram on social media that illustrated various transactions between crypto wallets, with a particular focus on the PAAL AI project.

He further explains that shortly after receiving tokens from the project, TraderSZ began promoting the token on his social media channels:

“Trader SZ received 4M PAAL from their team on Aug 10 and began shilling a few days after. Shortly after that was when he began dumping,” he declared.

PAAL AI’s price surged from $0.017 on August 10 to reach an all-time high of $0.0451 by September 3.

Various telegram text and audio messages were published along with the allegations.

“Many of these guys are our personal frens irl. Can ensure they’d be willing to get on board on our say so,” an alleged message from Petabyte revealed to the group chat.

He further pointed out that their combined following would reach up to 2.67 million organic followers.

ZachXBT’s Ongoing Crypto Investigations

ZachXBT has earned a reputation for boldly exposing fraudulent projects and scams within the crypto industry.

However, this has resulted in him encountering legal challenges. On June 17, reports revealed that Jeffrey Huang, known as MachiBigBrother on Twitter, sued ZachXBT over an investigative article he wrote in 2022.

ZachXBT stated that the lawsuit was “baseless and an attempt to chill free speech.” The anonymous blockchain investigator vowed to contest the legal action. However, he sought assistance from the community to cover the associated costs.

In a matter of hours, he garnered a total sum of over $600,000 in donations. Notable figures such as Binance CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao and Kraken founder Jesse Powell are among the prominent supporters.

Both ZachXBT and Huang took to their social media on August 15 to announce that Huang had dropped the lawsuit.